


A Knock at the Door

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [38]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-08 11:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12253248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: Prompt: This may sound crazy but imagine Claire went back but said No to Frank and decided to raise Bree in Scotland on her own. After researching and being sure Bree can travel, she goes back but comes at the time Jamie is living with Laoghaire.





	A Knock at the Door

Jamie sat near the fire examining the head and handle of the broken shovel. He needed to replace the handle shaft which had split while he was digging in the fields. He had the new one ready but first needed to remove the broken halves and then reshape the new handle shaft so it fitted into the iron head.

There was a rhythmic thumping on the table behind him where Laoghaire and the girls were making bread. They didn’t speak, any of them, except for the occasional word of instruction from Laoghaire to the girls that they needed to do it more like this.

Jamie could feel Laoghaire’s eyes on him in those long stretches of quiet. He had dreamed of Claire again the night before and knew he must have cried out… again. He didn’t mean to do it and had tried explaining to Laoghaire that he understood if she thought about and missed her lost husbands––how could she not miss her lasses’ father? It was a natural thing to yearn for and mourn loved ones lost, not something that could be helped. But from Laoghaire’s pointed silence and the glare she’d given him as she walked away from the end of his speech, she appeared to believe otherwise.

But Jamie never wanted to lose that last grip he had on Claire. He stopped apologizing when the dreams came and he woke Laoghaire. He wasn’t sorry for them, after all. Pretending otherwise was becoming too exhausting.

Glancing over his shoulder at the table he briefly caught Marsali’s eye. She quickly looked to her mother and then redoubled her efforts with her ball of bread dough, her mouth pressed to a line, determined to keep her thoughts contained.

He frowned turning back to his work. The lasses deserved better than this awkwardness and growing resentment. There was a decision coming soon and he knew he’d have to be the one to make it.

Joanie made a small noise of surprise.

“Mam… someone’s coming.” She nodded toward the window.

Jamie set his tools aside and rose to answer the door but Laoghaire had already thumped the dough on the table, wiped her hands on her apron, and beaten him to the door.

The words “Can I” were already out of her mouth before she’d registered who it was on the other side.

“I thought you’d remember me,” a familiar voice said with amusement and disgust. “Jenny told me I might find my husband here.”

Jamie reached to pull Laoghaire out of the doorway so he could see Claire for himself when a second voice scolded, “Mam!”

Claire found his eyes for a moment before turning to the young woman at her side, taking his attention along with her.

Her skirt was long and dark and she bristled in the restrictive bodice and stays. Her fiery hair was pulled back from her face but not up like Claire’s. She let loose waves of it fall down her back and catch on her shoulders. A light flush filled her cheeks when their eyes met and he realized she’d been standing there gaping at him too.

“Who is she?” Joanie whispered to Marsali behind them.

“Claire?” Jamie asked glancing back and forth between her and the lass.

Claire nodded and Jamie took a step forward, brushing Laoghaire as he moved to pass through the door.

The contact jostled Laoghaire from her surprised stupor. She hurried forward too, keeping herself between Jamie and Claire.

“No!” she said emphatically. “Ye’re no taking another step,” she warned Jamie. “And _you_ ,” she glared at Claire, “Ye’re no welcome. I want ye off my property at once.”

“I’ll leave as soon as you return my husband to me,” Claire challenged, crossing her arms over her chest.

“And if he doesna wish to wo wi’ ye?” Laoghaire gambled. “He chose to wed me which is more’n he had when Dougal forced him to take you. And _ye’re_ the one that left him all those years ago––left him to die and think ye were dead too. Why’d he want to go back to a wife who couldna stay to do her proper duty?”

Heat and shame rose in Claire’s face. The girl beside her reached out and rested a reassuring hand on her mother’s arm.

Anger had risen in Jamie along with a drive to act that he had been too exhausted to rouse for some months. He stepped past Laoghaire again and spun to face her, causing her to take a step back.

“That’s enough, Laoghaire,” he hissed. “Ye speak of what ye dinna ken the first thing about. Ye werena there wi’ me in the cave nor did ye follow me to Ardsmuir. Ye were only too eager to let my sister do the work of convincing me to marry ye. I assure ye, Dougal had the easier time of it, by far.”

“I’ve done more for you than she ever did,” Laoghaire insisted. “Where was she through all ye suffered? And her the cause of it.”

“But she was there wi’ me,” Jamie said with a solemn smile. He glanced over his shoulder to Claire and the lass. “She––and the bairn––have been with me every day.”

“Brianna,” the lass said, offering an awkward smile and wave. “The ‘bairn’ has a name and it’s Brianna.”

“For your father,” Claire added quietly. “Like I promised.”

“Then… you _knew_ she wasna dead,” Laoghaire stammered, reaching and pulling hard on Jamie’s arm to make him turn and face her again. “Ye knew and ye wed me all the same.” Accusation and a fresh well of fury flooded her. “Ye bastard!” she exclaimed, hitting him in the chest. “Ye meant to make me a fool, to shame me––”

“I didna ken she lived,” Jamie swore to Laoghaire. “I told her to go when what would happen on Culloden became clear but I’ve spent near twenty years wondering did she get caught by the English as she fled or did bearing the child kill them both. I never meant to shame ye and I’m sorry if I have. We’ll find a way to make things right between us, I promise,” Jamie rambled desperately. He wasn’t sure yet what would happen or even what could happen. All he knew was that he wanted–– _needed––_ to be alone with Claire and Brianna. He needed to know what had happened, what had their lives been like and why were they here (and why _now_ ).

“I ken well now what yer promises are worth, James Fraser,” Laoghaire spat at him. “No a damn thing. Get off my land and know ye’re goin’ to pay for the wrong ye’ve done me. All of ye.”

Jamie bit his tongue as Laoghaire glared at him. He felt Claire’s hand slip into his and closed his own reflexively around it, letting Claire pull him along back up the road, presumably to Lallybroch. He saw Marsali and Joanie’s faces in the window briefly before Laoghaire slammed the door on her way back inside.

“Perhaps this is actually Laoghaire’s chickens coming home to roost,” Brianna said quietly, more to Claire than to him. They settled into a steady pace, none of them sure of what their next step should actually be. “She’s the same one who arranged to have you taken and charged as a witch, isn’t she Mam?”

“She what?” Jamie stopped in the road, fighting the impulse to go back and have another few words with Laoghaire about paying for past wrongs.

“It doesn’t matter,” Claire insisted, giving Jamie’s hand a tug. “Not now we’re finally all together.”

“How?” Jamie asked, starting them on their way again.

“At first… it was too painful to think about anything,” Claire said quietly. “I knew as soon as I saw Frank again that I couldn’t… Well, that it wouldn’t work with him. I needed to raise Brianna on my own terms and I didn’t have it in me to fight with him about it or watch him struggle. So I decided to stay in Scotland. She was born there and I would tell her all about you when she was little… And then one day she told me she didn’t believe me about our story.”

“Can ye blame me?” Brianna said in her defense. “Traveling through time and trying to change history… I wasn’t a child anymore and it wasna the thing to believe so wholly in fairy tales anymore.”

“So I started to look for you to prove it,” Claire explained. The way they talked around and through one another mesmerized Jamie, their conversation flowing rapid and smooth sweeping him away. “I had help looking for records of your having been imprisoned at Fort William and Wentworth but there was a mixup in the request paperwork and somehow they found you on the records from Ardsmuir. As soon as I knew you’d survived…” Claire’s voice hitched and Brianna took the lead once more.

“I ended up helping her look. We found more of where you’d been and how ye’d survived––one of my friend’s favorite legends was the Dunbonnet and it had never occurred to me that it might be about you. Eventually we found record of you at Helwater and… I dinna think we even discussed it at that point. We had to come find ye, I… I had to meet you myself. I’d heard so many of Mam’s stories but seein’ it like I did when we were searching…” Her cheeks flushed again and she looked away, down the road rather than at him. “It made ye feel more real and not just a story. I needed to know you.”

Jamie let go of Claire’s hand and stepped closer to Brianna forcing them to stop in the road again. “I’m glad yer mam was able… I’m afraid ye’ll have to be the one to tell me about yerself. I’ve had naught but dreams and hopes of what ye might be and the life ye ought to have.”

Brianna closed the remaining gap between them and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest. “I’ll tell ye anything ye want to know. We’ve plenty of time now.”

“Aye,” he stammered, swallowing the words about time already lost and instead letting his arms close around her as his chin rested on her head. He stared at Claire who watched with a prideful smile and tears in her eyes. “And we’ve plenty to figure and plan as well. I dinna ken I’ve seen so many possible futures in a long time.”

“Only one lonely one,” Claire agreed.

“Ye had me,” Brianna objected in a tone that made her parents laugh.

“Yes, and you were the greatest comfort I could have asked for… but nothing could stop my missing you,” she finished with a longing look at Jamie.

“Nor I you,” he confirmed. “Nor did I want to. To stop yearnin’ for ye would have been to lose ye once and for all.”

“All right,” Brianna interrupted. “I’ll go on ahead a bit and you two can catch me up when ye’re done with… with this.” She waved her hands at them.

Jamie had Claire in his arms before Brianna was out of sight, his forehead resting against hers.

“I dreamed of ye last night and I’m no entirely sure I’m no dreaming still,” he confessed.

“Did I do this in your dream?” She raised herself on her toes and brought her lips to his, her arms twining around his neck as he deepened the kiss.

“Aye,” he said breathlessly a moment later. “Ye did that… and more.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it later tonight,” she laughed but it became a sigh. “I’ve missed this––missed you.”

“The wanting ye… it’s never stopped.”

“Even after all this time?” she asked, a deeper question and whisper of doubt wavering in her voice.

“ _Especially_ after all this time.”


End file.
